


The case of the dead man walking

by punkypeggy



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Meetings, Gen, POV First Person, Sherlock Holmes Returns after Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 21:54:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1444243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkypeggy/pseuds/punkypeggy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And some of them said, “Could not this Man, who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept this man from dying?”</p><p>A summary of Sherlock's and John's first meeting after Reichenbach, from Sherlock's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The case of the dead man walking

**Author's Note:**

> This was written before The Empty Hearse aired, so you will notice some incongruences, as well as some allusions to Doyle's canon.

We are worth nothing.

  
None of us really matters. Some are just noisier than others and get more attention, but that’s all.  
  
Take me, for instance. I was risen to “ _Reichenbach hero_ ” status, to be demoted to “ _fraud_ ” in the lapse of six months. To the world, I don’t matter. To the world, I’m irrelevant.  
  
Then there was that little thing about my death. Disappearing from the public eye was surprisingly simple. A week later, a Royal scandal covered mine. A month later, nobody remembered the genius. It was alright. Death fit me.  
  
I found out that being dead was terribly convenient. Nobody was wary of a dead man, as dead men tend to be far less resourceful than I was. Dismantling Moriarty’s web, however, took long enough. I travelled across all of Europe, half of Asia, some of Africa. My name changed as much as my hairstyles, my age, my weight, my profession. Professor Patrick Escott. Frère Jean Paul Altamont. Mr Ashdown. Mr Emmanuel Bach. Captain Henrik Sigerson. The only constant was my will to tear it all apart.   
  
I faced men high on power who thought they were monsters. I faced monsters, hidden under the skin of men. I defeated them all. In the lapse of three years, Moriarty was nothing but a name, barely whispered, and mostly by myself. Only a final thread remained. A thread called Sebastian Moran, that took me back to my beloved London.  
  
We are worth nothing.  
  
I spent three years working alone, living a life that wasn’t mine (but oh, how mine it was!), regretting a single moment. I lied many times to him, but only one hurt. That time I broke his new found life. “He won’t forgive me”, I thought. “But he won’t forget me”, either.  
  
Huge was my surprise when I found out he was going to get married. He had been able to rebuild his life. Why wasn’t I? Why was I so obsessed with Moriarty that I wouldn’t allow myself that? I pondered whether or not letting him know about my deceased-but-not-quite status. I needed to see him.  
  
Disguised as a book seller, I made my way into his study. I was sad when he didn’t recognise me. He offered me a chat, and his charming wife-to-be offered me a cup of coffee. They had built a home. But there it was, that sparkle in his eye. That longing for the battlefield, subdued, but definitely there.  
  
We are worth nothing. So is resentment.  
  
I decided there was no London without Sherlock Holmes, and no Sherlock Holmes without John Watson.  
  
I took the prostethics off my face and greeted my old friend with a smile that earned me a punch to the jaw and a river of blasphemies.  
  
I never felt so alive.


End file.
